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News > Open letter to Blizzard regarding BlizzCon 2007
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Open letter to Blizzard regarding BlizzCon 2007
By: Doctor Ess
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 Let's do a little math shall we? In the opening speech for BlizzCon 2007, they told us there are over 9 million World of Warcraft subscribers. Let's just round it to 9 million for argument sake. We know the U.S. subscription is $14.99 per month (give or take depending on how long you prepay).
But we know in China that it is much less so let's take an average across the entire world at a very conservative $8.50 per month. You end up with over $76 million in revenue every month. Granted that Vivendi is taking a large chunk (to prop up their other failing businesses) and Blizzard has a substantial overhead with servers, employees, and supporting the product/new product development. Even after that, we are looking at well over $20 million a month going to the bottom line at Blizzard.
Remember, this is not taking into account ongoing revenues from StarCraft, WarCraft and other Blizzard hits that just keep selling years later. AND, I am not even counting the money that was earned from the World of Warcraft Expansion (sold 2.4 million copies in 24 hours for a new PC game sales record) or the money that players have to pay just to buy the World of Warcraft game itself.
Bottom line: Blizzard is making more money than they ever have.
So for the first time in 2 years, Blizzard announces what is sure to be the greatest U.S. (more on that later) fan convention ever. They call it BlizzCon 2007.
Over 15,000 Blizzard fans overload the sign up website as they frantically try to spend $100 for a ticket to this once in a lifetime event. It sells out in 3 days flat.
$100 is not cheap for a fan convention. Let me put this in perspective. Comic-Con 2007 (which occurred the week before BlizzCon) was 4 days long with an astounding amount of content. It was only $40 for the entire 4 day event. That gave you an all access pass to the booths, the floor, and the panels. And Comic-Con delivered (believe me, I was there).
On the first day we arrived at BlizzCon (we got there a day early), we hurried over to the convention center to check-in early. We were going to be smart and avoid the next day's rush to sign-up. Blizzard themselves had told us to go early to check-in to avoid long lines and waiting on the day of the event. It was right there in their FAQ on their site.
The line was out the door.
An hour and a half later, we had our bags, our badges, and our swag (the best part of BlizzCon frankly). We were informed at the time that they could not give us a program guide for the next day so we would have to pick it up in the morning tomorrow. Seemed like an odd comment (why wouldn't they have guides yet?) but we figured they must be revealing something totally top secret.
We leave a bunch of other poor slobs that had very common last names (so their lines were longer because it was alphabetical) and we headed back to the hotel. I am sure many people waited upwards of 3 hours that day to check-in partly because the lines were so long and there was only one Blizzard employee per station. Also, the average time (we got so bored waiting that we actually timed each one) was about 3 minutes so they weren't exactly "moving people through" the line.
So Gonx joins us the next day. He hasn't checked in yet. We tell him, "Dude, the lines were so long yesterday, you might miss the first presentation!" He prepares himself for hell as we head to the convention center.
We arrive to find absolutely NO ONE in line. Not a soul. Turns out everyone had the same idea as us. He checks-in in under 1 minute and has his bag of goodies. He starts going through it when we see quite a few things we did not get yesterday. "Hey, what's that? How did you get that?" Gonx tells us that it was "just in there." We go up and ask a Blizzard employee why we didn't get the same stuff (some really amazing things worth a lot of money to fans). The Blizzard employee proceeds to tell us that "Every bag has different things in it. You guys probably got some stuff that he didn't."
We quickly check our bags. Nope, he has everything we have and 3 more items (2 of which are collectible and valuable). So not only did we get the shaft on the upfront SWAG, but we had to stay in line for hours the day before just to receive less! Not a good way to start the first day of the conference. I mean, half the reason we were there was for the SWAG!
We quickly head into the main convention floor to get a lay of the land. We open the doors to a collective "sulk." This is it?
There are about 10 vendor booths making up "the floor". There is a designated area for the WoW TCG, a large bank of computers to play StarCraft II (easily the best thing to do at BlizzCon), a bank of computers to play the horrible demo for Lich King (more on that later), 2 separate BlizzCon stores, an area for the competitive games, and a large set of chairs lined up in front of some screens for the panels. Hmmm, what are we going to do for 2 days here?
We sit down for the opening speech. You can read my thoughts here. Short story, no big announcements, everything new was already leaked online 2 days ago (which I can't fault Blizzard for except that they let it leak and that really took the wind out of the sails for the announcement).
By the way, the audio-visual people in charge of sound and video feeds did a horrible job. Blizzard, never hire these people again. The sound was muffled and did not project at all. Most people in the back could not hear what was being said. Of the 8 screens in the main hall, 6 were blurry, flickering, or unfocused and the audio-visual people acted like they did not notice it!
You know all that talk online about Blizzard working on a new MMO? No news. You know all that talk online about Blizzard working on an entirely new IP game? No news.
The most insulting thing was seeing the Korean convention a couple of months ago. Absolutely, jaw-droppingly amazing. I wish I could've been there. Blizzard really knows how to treat its Korean fans right.
We spend the rest of the day at the Blizzard Music/Sounds panel (an amazing panel that was a total blast and honor to attend), Lich King expansion panel (some new information learned about the Death Knight hero class. Worst questions in any panel I attended), and StarCraft II (awesome seeing gameplay walkthrough but really no new information that we didn't already find out playing the demo ourselves) which were all pretty entertaining and interesting. We take about an hour to go through every booth on the floor (and it would have taken less if there weren't such huge lines at every booth).
Side note on the panels: None of the panels started on time. Not one. That is poor event management. Worse yet, when they did start, they had different MC's introducing the participants in the most half-hazard way possible. No one knew what was going on or what was going to happen next. Crowd control was a real issue. Also, PLEASE screen questions before letting people stand in line and ask the most moronic stuff you have ever heard. One guy literally stood in line for 20 minutes for the StarCraft II panel to ask if the map editor would support FPS mods? The panel was in stunned silence. I don't think the guy even knew what StarCraft II was.
We get in line at the BlizzCon store because we know that the good stuff goes fast. We wait for about 45 minutes in line, get to the front and the one thing we wanted more than anything else (StarCraft II cinematic poster) is all sold out. We buy a bunch of other stuff.
Now for a side note. You know how I was saying that Blizzard is making a lot of money? You would think they would pass that as savings to the fans. Items in their store have to be on sale and cost less than what you could buy them for online, right? Wrong. Sorry, everything was as much if not more than what you could purchase online. There were some exclusive BlizzCon only items, most of which looked like designers from 1994 had created them. Blizz, where is the style? Where are the cool shirts? Are Blizzard fans such dolts that they think this stuff looks cool to wear? Every single solitary shirt was black with a colored printed on it. I am not exagerating.
We stand in line for the StaCraft II beta demo and it is the most amazing 20 minutes I spend at the conference. It hits a vein. I can't believe how the time passes. Gonx kicks my ass in multiplayer. I can't wait for it to come out so I can get my game back and some payback.
Now the sound-alike and costume contests begin. Now... We have just come from Comic-Con the week before where some of the top A-list actors and comedians in the industry spent hours entertaining us with genuinely funny and fresh stuff. Who does Blizzard get for BlizzCon 2007?
Jay (last comic "we want to see" standing) Mohr
The guy was a disaster on so many levels. I've given this guy so many chances to be funny and my patience is at an end. I'm sorry. I know how hard it is to be funny and I could never do stand-up but this guy is bottom of the proverbial barrel. After about an hour and a half of waiting, we decided to split for some dinner. He was THAT bad. (Those of you who watch "Last Comic Standing", know what I mean).
Saturday morning, we are driving back to the convention. We are all jazzed about the StarCraft II demo. Then we start to wonder, "what are we supposed to do today?" Oh ya, the Blizzard World of Warcraft movie (made by Legendary Pictures) is having a panel at noon, we definitely want to see that. What else? Hmmm... Not much....
We arrive, do some quick SWAG related stuff at the booths and check the BlizzCon store one more time for goods. Almost everything is sold out, especially all the good stuff.
Gonx and I go play the WoW TCG in the beginners tournament. We do pretty well but have to quit because we want to see other things at the conference. Side note: The Upper Deck guys running the Beginner's event were so disorganized. They did not hold to any of their timelines, they gave almost no help to new players (I saw a lot of people playing the game wrong and nothing was said or done), and it was so disorganized that no one knew what to do.
Swordboy goes and waits in line for an hour to play the Lich King demo. He finally sits down and selects a level 70 character to play (No, you couldn't play level 80's). He starts walking around, trying to figure out how to play the Death Knight class. He chats on GENERAL. "How do we play the Death Knight class?". "You don't", says another player on the channel. "Its not playable at the conference." Swordboy: "Then what are we supposed to do." "I guess just walk around." I am not even joking. Blizzard announces the Death Knight class, the new Northrend land, and all they let you do in the beta was walk around in a single zone with a fake level 70 character. No Death Knight, no Rune experimentation, no new spells, no new talents. Some new enemy models and lots of trees (basically more of the same for WoW). Swordboy is so pissed, he leaves before his 20 minutes are up.
We spend the afternoon in panels again. Much less interesting Saturday. Now its time for the big finale. By far, one of the coolest things Blizzard does is bringing in a full orchestra to play music from a collection of its games including World of Warcraft. We get more of Jay Mohr's stand-up garbage (still no funny). And a disappointing performance by "Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftan" (a WoW metal band).
So BlizzCon 2007 turns out to be a missed opportunity. An underwhelming adventure that in no way reflects a company with the most popular PC game of all time. As a staunch Blizzard supporter and player (WarCraft I, WarCraft II, StarCraft (I worship this game), WarCraft III (ranked in top 100 2v2 teams at one time), World of Warcraft (level 60 in 45 days from release of game)), I expected a lot more. How much money do they have? How much money am I paying them monthly? How much money did I pay for this convention?
Blizzard, don't even do a BlizzCon if you can't do it right. I think in the end, it all came down to really poor planning on the part of the event staff. It's almost like they weren't ready for the event in time and everything was thrown together at the last second. The mind boggles at how hard it must be to put one of these together but there are legitimate people out there that do a great job. Why not give Microsoft (say what you will about them but their events really deliver) or Apple? How about the VS Live guys or even the Comic-Con event staff? Why not set this up yearly and do it right each time?
Secondly, give us something to cheer about. Fire the people that leaked the Lich King information early. I paid good money to be one of the first to know. After the conference, Swordboy called up a buddy. He was trying to tell him about the expansion and what we learned. The friend had not been on the Internet all day and knew as much if not more than we did from reading the night before!
Third, let more people come. Get more stuff to do and allow more participants. The conference was embarrassingly small. The only reason there were long lines was because Blizzard didn't give us much to do.
Finally, hire top talent to host the show, event, and sponsors. You have the biggest PC game in history, act like it. You can get whoever you want. Find a star who loves WoW and actually plays (Jay Mohr had no clue what people were talking about most of the time) and let them entertain/be one of us.
If the next BlizzCon is anything like this one, I'll have to pass. At least I can go put on my Murloc suit now.
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